Jackson Cuts EMA Funding, County Considers Footing Bill
JACKSON, Tenn. — Cuts at Jackson City Hall force Madison County commissioners to pick up the tab. The city of Jackson voted to cut all funding for the Jackson-Madison County Emergency Management Agency. The county budget committee voted to pay the bill. “We feel like that we are a very necessary agency,” Jackson-Madison County Emergency Management Agency Director Marty Clements said. Clements and his staff step in when disaster strikes. “Pinnacle Foods, the ammonia leak, Union University’s bomb threat, Jackson Meadows with the evacuation there,” he said. When tornadoes, flooding, and ice storms hit, they get to work. Clements says losing this funding would hurt his department. “This is something that’s just, to me it’s a necessity that we have to we just have to do,” Madison County Commissioner Doug Stephenson, a member of the budget committee said. “I mean, we don’t have any other alternative.” Stephenson confirms the county‘s budget committee agreed to pay about an additional $125,000. He says this year that money will come from reserve funds, but eventually they may have to make cuts. “We may have to sacrifice in another area moving forward you know to take on this commitment,” said Stephenson. “We’ll see what the city is planning on doing you know in the future.” Clements says the agency will also receive about $94,000 worth of state and federal funding. “If we don’t need it, we don’t use it,” he said. “You know we won’t spend it.” Madison County commissioners still have to approve the budget. They meet again June 16.
